Thursday, January 05, 2012

hyundai tournament of champions

the start of the 2012 US TOUR is the traditional curtain-raiser in Hawaii with the winners from last year event... starting FRI 6th JAN 2012

the course here at KAPALUA is long but has extremely wide fairways so you can get away with blasting it wildly off the tee; add to this some strong breezes which are common and you can make a mockery of the longer holes...

this should help the big hitters for sure although the greens are very large too so there will be a lot of lag putts required and good putting will as always help here

expect a winning score around the -20 mark as -6 or -7 will be about right for the leader of each round.. chuck in the odd par score and your winner will probably need to be notching about 36 birdies or so (+/- eagles)

a few picks for this opening week >

jonathan BYRD > he is the defending champ and also boasts a good record here with four top 15 finishes (albeit small fields) and nearly always shoots below par - may again take advantage of slow tour starters being the first event, also has good 3 putt 'avoidance' stats as well so isn't bad at all at nearly 30 price-wise > 29 Betfair

gary WOODLAND > could be a very big year for this strong young powerful athlete - popular this week too with his game looking suited and some good recent performances (imppressive in the end of year tourneys) - hits it  a huge distance and can score really well here too if he putts as well as he can; great chance to really move onwards and upwards in 2012 > 20 Betfair 

scott PIERCY > another blaster like woodland who hits it a long way and also goes for the birdies so therefore a good week beckons although he may be a bit outclassed in this field, odds tempt however so will dabble > 75 Betfair

bryce MOLDER > was ranked 3rd last season in the 'strokes gained putting' stat on PGA TOUR (and also 3 putt avoidance) and really finished the year well so perhaps this is a nice stepping stone for him on the upward path he seems capable of > 34 Betfair

some others worth noting > Brendan Steele > I have high hopes for Steele, the likeable Bill Haas should go well here and I also think Jonatthan Vegas will be worth watching here - basically most of the new young guns should enjoy it and although there may be 1 or 2 obvious mature players (Bubba perhaps) one of the above hopefully will fire enough birdies to take this... I'm avoiding the top of the market and looking for one of these 4 above and might trade the other guys if odds look decent and they are still within touch after a round or so

let's hope for a decent start and I'll use smaller stakes here as always wary of the first event although will count them as 1 LSP as usual for stats purposes

* looking to maintain last year's huge profits tip-wise! *

links >


3 comments:

  1. cracking start from BYRD as he posted a 67 and leads by 1 shot after the first round > down to 8 or so on betfair already

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  2. byrd dropped to around 6 or just under as he played well today and got close as stricker failed to get going until the last 4 holes > decent trade out as you would expect SS to close this one out from here... molder not showing badly and he and byrd nicely placed for each way backers

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  3. byrd got close again in round 4 but eventually finished 3rd, molder was slow today but got closer to the frame although ended 7th, piercy 12th and woody a disappointing nowehere

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